How May Mobility Is Spearheading Autonomous Driving In The Form Of Shuttle Services

Debuted at the Y Combinator Demo Day in August 2017, May Mobility has been transporting people via its self-driving micro shuttle service by making short-distance travel safe, convenient, and comfortable.

May Mobility was founded by Edwin Olson (CEO), Alisyn Malek (COO) and Steve Vozar (CTO) whom are automotive industry veterans, leaders in academia and experts in robotics. Olson worked as a principal investigator on Ford’s autonomous driving program and as co-director of autonomous driving at the Toyota Research Institute. Olson is also an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, on leave to lead May Mobility. He earned a PhD from MIT in 2008 for his work in robot mapping.

In total, Olson has worked on autonomous vehicles for over a decade -- which includes the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. Olson’s academic research focuses on real-world robot systems, particularly robot perception and planning. He earned a DARPA Young Faculty Award, wasnamed one of Popular Science's "Brilliant 10" and was the winner of the international 2010 MAGIC robotics competition.

Alisyn Malek, the co-founder and COO of May Mobility, previously worked at GM Ventures where she worked with closely with Cruise Automation — which ended up getting acquired by GM and brought in-house for its own self-driving initiatives.

May Mobility’s CTO Steve Vozar also worked on Ford’s autonomous vehicle program. In addition, Vozar helped Olson lead the University of Michigan APRIL robotics lab, which built robot systems for agencies like the Department of Defense and DARPA. Many of May Mobility’s early hires came from these projects, bringing their experience.

When I asked Olson how the idea for May Mobility came together, he said that it was from a realization during his time at the Toyota Research Institute. While there, he was focused on understanding where the technology of autonomous vehicles and market would meet. “I realized that we really don’t know how long it will take to crack the nut on fully level 5 vehicles, but that our technology could already handle a wide variety of more structured environments. With my co-founders, we identified the market segments that desperately need our solutions. Now, while others are still in research and development, we are solving real-world transportation problems with business economics that make sense. We can show our customers objective, quantifiable performance improvements over their existing transportation systems-- improving rider satisfaction at the same time,” said Olson.

May Mobility already has fully operating vehicles, paying customers, and a number of strategic partnerships with companies like Cepton Technologies. This year, May Mobility is expecting to launch more partnerships where its vehicles will be launched in structured environments that solve their customers’ short-distance transportation challenges.

“We take a deep system view, which means that we’re not just a software company-- we also build the hardware necessary to deliver safety, reliability, and performance. In the autonomous vehicle space, it is incredibly valuable to have the ability to address problems or exploit opportunities wherever they might pop up. Owning the vertical stack means that our team can always move fast, since we’re rarely dependent on external vendors for bug fixes or important features,” Olson added. “Having this deep technical capability means that if the vehicle’s original steering wheel is in the way of our new 49-inch digital dashboard, we can do all of the mechanical and electrical work to take that steering wheel out. We didn’t need it anyway.This masters-of-our-own-destiny approach extends to our sensing and software systems too: we can combine sensors to achieve the capability and safety we need today; we don’t need to wait for suppliers to develop their next generation products.”

One of May Mobility’s biggest milestones was a partnership with Detroit-based Bedrock. Bedrock offers a shuttle service from their office buildings to parking structures. In October 2017, May Mobility executed on a contract to provide five days of service, replacing the diesel buses typically used on the routes. Olson pointed out that “May Mobility proved that not only are we able to operate safely on public streets in downtown Detroit, but that our system reduces passenger wait time, and increases rider satisfaction with our smaller and more personal vehicles.”

May Mobility was incorporated in early 2017, but it really got off the ground in May 2017. And the company has raised over $11 million in seed funding from investors such as Maven, Tandem, Trucks VC, SV Angel and Y Combinator.

I asked Olson what the future holds for autonomous driving and whether he believes humans will still be driving themselves around by the year 2050. “By 2050, we will be facing serious challenges in urban areas. Traffic congestion wastes our time and reduces our quality of life, and parking lots take up space better used for retail, residential or green space. Traditional personally-owned vehicles are a big part of this problem. Every urban center is going to need the safe, clean, and easy-to-use transportation solutions that May Mobility is building,” Olson responded. “Between now and then I think we’ll slowly see human-driven vehicles moved outside the city center, with May Mobility’s vehicles providing convenient and accessible transportation to everyone.”

What are May Mobility’s future company goals? “We plan to lead the industry with our system design approach, continue to launch pilot programs across the U.S. and eventually have full fleets of our shuttles across the U.S. that bring communities closer together. In the long term, there’s no shortage of ambition: we want everyone to ride May every day,” Olson concluded.

I have written over 20,000 articles about startups, gadgets and large technology companies over the last ten years. My Forbes column focuses on the tech economy, startups and gadgets. When I am not writing for Forbes, I spend time hanging out with my wife around metro Detro...